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Interesting Facts About ELEPHANTS

These magnificent beasts have fascinated man for hundreds of years. We are enthralled by their sheer size and strength, nurturing family structure, complex nature and unique physiology.

Spending every day with the elephants, we constantly learn more about them, and are in awe of their extraordinary intelligence and strong bonds with each other and the team who care for them.

Enjoy these few snippets of interesting Pachyderm facts.

The African Elephant’s left ear is shaped like the continent of Africa. If you look carefully you can see where Elephant Whispers in Hazyview is!

An elephant’s tooth can weigh as much as 3 kilograms. As one tooth wears out, another one is pushed forward to replace it. Elephants have six sets of molars in their lifetime.

Elephant’s tails can grow as long as 1.5m (4.9 feet, 59 inches) and are tipped by coarse wire-like hairs.

To support their weight, elephant’s bones are solid. They have 282 bones and humans have 206 bones.

The skin thickness varies from very thin on the inside of the ear, to about 2.5cm on their backs and parts of their head.

African Elephant’s front feet are round, like a soccer ball, and their back feet oval, shaped like a rugby ball.

ELEPHANTS ARE EATING MACHINES!

They consume in the region of 5% of their body weight daily, a six ton elephant eats approximately 300kg of food each day.

To calculate an elephant’s height, measure the circumference of the front foot and double this figure – this will give you the shoulder height. A handy tip to know should you be out on a bush walk and come across elephant footprints!

Elephants can live 65 to 70 years of age. The oldest known elephant was 86 years old and lived from 1917 – 2003.

Elephants are the only mammals that can’t jump. When they walk, or run, they always have one foot on the ground.

Elephants use their trunks to breathe when they are in deep water, just like we use a snorkel. Look closely, yes that’s the tip of an elephant’s trunk!

Elephants can’t shed tears as they don’t have tear ducts.

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